Spectroscopic evidence for a [3Fe-4S] cluster in spinach glutamate synthase

The combination of low temperature EPR, magnetic circular dichroism, and resonance Raman spectroscopies reveals the presence of a single [3Fe-4S]+,0 center as the sole iron-sulfur prosthetic group in glutamate synthase from spinach leaves. The electronic, magnetic, and structural properties of the oxidized and reduced cluster are analogous with those of similar clusters in bacterial ferredoxins. It was not possible to convert the [3Fe-4S] cluster to a [4Fe-4S] cluster by incubating with iron under reducing conditions. Taken together with the published amino acid sequence data for plant and bacterial glutamate synthases, this suggests that the [3Fe-4S] cluster is not an isolation artifact resulting from oxidative degradation of a [4Fe-4S] cluster. The likelihood that a [3Fe-4S] cluster is an intrinsic component of all plant and bacterial glutamate synthases is discussed.